I don't really have an opinion on the central issue, but since you folks are citing Hastings as an example, I wanted to point out that our knowledge of this battle is very, very limited.
Basically, 99% of everything we know (or think we know) about Hastings is from studying the Bayeaux tapestry. And the Bayeaux has labels on the various panels, yes, but the characters do not wear nametags. The action is
not always clear, and the information derived from the tapestry is by no means as unequivocal as they make it out to be in school.
Then there is the interesting fact that the tapestry apparently once contained more panels, which are now missing. The last panel remaining appears to deal with the death of Harold Godwineson, but who knows how that might change if the next panel were available to be viewed?
Try this exercise. Think of your favorite action novel or movie. Recall to yourself the climactic action sequence. Pick an arbitrary point at or near the height of the action. Now ask yourself how different the book/film might seem if it had ended abruptly at that point.
My point is simply that we don't know that much about the battle. We have commonly-accepted theories, based on limited data. Yes, this is true of most historical battles, but Hastings was such an incredibly important, history-changing event.
***edit***
Oh yeah, and be cool with each other here, guys. If you get to feuding, they'll lock the thread, and it's a shame to see a good topic end that way
